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Monday, July 20, 2009

Non-Fiction Monday

My children like to write almost as much as I do. We can spend an entire morning writing stories or journaling together and never get bored.

Most of the time we’ll work on our own ideas, but sometimes we enjoy doing the exercises in Gail Carson Levine’s “Writing Magic: Creating Stories that Fly.”

Even though it’s written for children ages 9 and up, I’ve been using it for years with my kids (currently ages 9 and 6). They like using her writing prompts to spark their own creativity and her conversational tone makes the book a great teaching tool. I’ll read through it myself when I need inspiration or a gentle reminder of how to make my characters sparkle.

I’m hosting Non-Fiction Monday for the Kidlitosphere today, so if you have a related post, leave the link in the comments.

Shirley at SimplyScience writes about Plate Tectonicssimplyscience.wordpress.comRecently on INK: Interesting Nonfiction for Kids"The Inconstant Moon" by Cheryl Harness, "Both Sides of the Story?" by Marfe Ferguson Delano, "When Reptiles Had Whiskers" by Loreen Leedy, "Lots of Kids Who Think they Hate Reading are Actually Avid Nonfiction Lovers" by Linda Salzman, "How Amazing is That?" by Susan E. Goodman, "An Unexpected Hero" by Barbara Kerley, "Don't Take My Word For It" by Richard Panchyk, and "Pouring on the Salt" by Rosalyn Schanzer. http://inkrethink.blogspot.com

About Me

I started making up stories as soon I could hold a pencil. Now I use my MacBook, which is nearly as portable as a pencil. In addition to writing middle grade novels, I moonlight as a graphic designer, substitute teacher, freelance writer, school newspaper advisor, and
mother of two children.